职称英语阅读翻译-北极光.docVIP

职称英语阅读 第十三篇 The Northern Lights北极光 The Sun is stormy and has its own kind of weather．It is so hot and active that even the Sun’s gravity cannot hold its atmosphere in check1! Energy flows away from the Sun toward the Earth in a stream of electrified particles that move at speeds around a million miles per hour2．These particles are called plasma，and the stream of plasma3 coming from the Sun is called the solar wind．The more active the Sun，the stronger the solar wind． The solar wind constantly streams toward the Earth，but don’t worry because a protective magnetic field surrounds our planet．The same magnetic field that makes your compass point north also steers the particles from the Sun to the north and south poles．The charged particles become trapped in magnetic belts around the Earth．When a large blast of solar wind crashes into the Earth’s magnetic field，the magnetic field first gets squeezed and then the magnetic field lines break and reconnect．4 The breaking and reconnecting of the magnetic field lines can cause atomic particles called electrons trapped in the belts to fall into the Earth’s atmosphere at the poles．As the electrons fall to the Earth，they collide with gas molecules in the atmosphere，creating flashes of light in the sky．Each atmospheric gas glows a different color．Oxygen and nitrogen glows red and green and nitrogen glows violet-purple．As these various colors glow and dance in the night sky，they create the Northern Lights and the Southern Lights． Watching auroras is fun and exciting，but normally you can only see them in places far north like Alaska and Canada．The movement of the aurora across the sky is usually slow enough to easily follow with your eyes but they can also pulsate，flicker，or even move like waves．During solar maximum，5 auroras are seen as far south as Florida，even Mexico! 6 Auroras often seem to be very close to the ground，but the lowest aurora is still about 100 kilometers above the ground，a distance much higher than clouds are form